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Hasn’t happened yet

He walks through the door,
He brought the sketch;
Crinkled paper in sweaty palms.
The bell jingles as he enters,
The buzz like a soft whine;
He stares in your eyes-
“Make it good,” he says,Make it bleed, he thinks.

You shrug, he nods,
He doesn’t even know where to put it;
How could he pack in 12 years of pain
Into one simple ink blot?

He can explain it all,
The elements and what they stand for:
The flames, the ice picks, the daggers,
The blood, the pitchfork,
The black heart, the devil wings,
A final halo…

Salt slick skin on his upper lip,
He didn’t know what to expect
Pain in spades and hinted regrets;
Adding art, subtracting perfection;
He’s a fuck up anyway, gotta own that shit
He is who he is.

And color cancels pigmentation
The final asphyxiation
Turns purple into blue,
And white into black.
Tell him, seraphim,
What light do you have to shine
On this dark, foreboding day?
Useless sour kisses and lemon juice tears.

Blinking his eyes open to a new day,
Ignoring the crumpled paper
Clenched in his fist like an unfinished prayer;
Does it monument his past
Or his future? He stares in the mirror
Of false accusation, or is it a condemnation?
But, then again, it’s all the same
Yesterday is today tomorrow…